Don't look at me sideways (or they say I'll disappear)
by The Readers Muse
Summary: Women can smell lies. Someone had told him that once.


**Disclaimer:** I don't own AMC's Fear the Walking Dead. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.

 **Authors Note #1:** Meant to fit into Nick's thought process during the very beginning of 1x04: "Not Fade Away" while he is lounging in the pool.

 **Warnings:** Contains: adult language, drug use, drugs, addiction, stages of addiction, basically Nick being the problematic bun of sourdough he truly is inside.

 **Don't look at me sideways (or they say I'll disappear)**

He didn't want to be here.

 _No._ That wasn't right.

He didn't want to be _here_ , sure.

But it was more than that.

 _He didn't want to be._

That being said, he didn't exactly want to die either.

It was a weird place to be in - mentally, emotionally, even physically – but at the end of the day he figured it still kept to character. He was still that person. His _own_ person. He wasn't a twelve step program anymore than he was the glint in a dealer's eye. The kind that saw you as just another junkie lookin' to get lit and high-five Jesus. That saw the money instead of the face.

He hadn't picked a side.

He'd wedged himself firmly between the two and kept to himself.

What other people did with that was none of his fuckin' business.

* * *

People always said you had to pick one.

It was either you wanted to live, or you were willing to die slow.

 _You gotta' have a death wish to wanna do that to yourself, right?_

 _Wrong._

He wanted- he'd always rode high and hard for both sides. Living for the spread of that sweet burn curling through his veins. In fact, he loved it so much he never wanted it to stop. He didn't want to die. But he didn't want to get clean either. That was why he was so careful. Why he researched and shopped around. Why he'd always been careful with the needles. With the dosage. Why he'd turned to Calvin in the first place. Why he'd always made Gloria hand everything she had over before he shot her up. Just to be safe.

That was the thing, though.

The thing no one else understood.

The dirty little secret that wasn't really a secret at all.

The fact that he didn't want to stop.

And for the worst reason out there.

The most untreatable.

 _The true death sentence._

* * *

After all, you can't help someone who doesn't want to help themselves.

That was what they said, right?

* * *

The weak chlorine from the pool made his nose twitch as he breathed it in. Water _lap-_ lapping against the sides of the mattress in uneven waves as the wind slowly twirled him around in an off-centered circle.

He scrunched his nose at the singe of burning and an entire city full of rotting trash that came along with it. Coasting comfortably on a low-humming high as the skin between his toes throbbed unhappily. Calm, perhaps for the first time since this had all started. Comforted by the knowledge that regardless of the pills his mother had started weening him off of, he still had a line through Hector. He was used to looking after himself. Used to getting himself what he needed to get by. If mom was too busy trying to get him clean to understand what he needed, he'd get it himself. Just like he always did.

He opened his eyes, struck by an insane urge to see the sun. Lasting an agonizing half second before flinching at the brightness as his retina's burned through his lids. Setting his skin violently on fire as he sighed and settled back across the sharp plastic edges. Listening to the faint sounds of raised voices from the house as the world kept on spinning and everyone tried their best to either adapt or make excuses for how much it was changing on all of them.

* * *

Women can smell lies.

Someone had told him that once.

* * *

He didn't remember how or when or even if it was his own lips that'd said it in the first place, but it had stuck with him ever since. Making him fumble the delivery on a hundred and one lies that he'd still told anyway. Hitting him at odd times, like right after mom stood up from her crouch beside the pool and started walking away. Making him freeze up inside and hesitantly ask if she was okay despite the fact that he really didn't want to know the answer.

Wondering - off hand and idle as what was left of his body smoldered around his skeleton - what mom smelled whenever any of them opened their mouths these days.

* * *

He missed Gloria.

She'd known.

She'd understood.

She would have carded her fingers through his hair and made it all better.

 _Easy._

Like the sharp of a fresh needle bringing him home.

She'd always known what to say.

Especially when he didn't deserve it.

* * *

 **A/N:** Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.


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